Bio-Younkin, CharlotteLenaDoyle

Charlotte Magdalene "Lena"
(Younkin) Doyle Showman
(1900-1972)

In 1926, Lena attended the 94th birthday party of her grandmother and partial namesake, Mary Magdalene (Whipkey) Harbaugh, held on the old Harbaugh homestead at what is now Clairton Lake near Scullton, Somerset County, PA. The event attracted some 225 family and friends, and became the first annual Harbaugh Reunion. The reunions are still held today.

As a young woman Lena worked as a clerk in Connellsville. There, she boarded with her brother Osborne in the "rooming floors" above an old opera house owned by Alex Chinn. In November 1926, they narrowly escaped a disaster when their boarding house "was totally destroyed by fire." Among the possessions she rescued was the old Harbaugh Bible that she had borrowed from her grandmother. She and her brother David are said to have taken the drenched relic to brother Warren's home, where it was placed on towels on top of a heater, so it could be dried. The Bible’s covers and edges were scorched and stained with water damage, but was saved, thanks to Lena’s quick thinking and loving care afterward to help preserve it. Later, the Bible served as major source material for the Harbaugh History book, published in 1947 by Cora Bell and J.L. Cooperider.

Lena served as maid of honor when Os married Katherine Williams two years later, in 1928.

On April 12, 1929, at age 29, Lena married 42-year-old Patrick Joseph Doyle (1887-1940), a native of County Duran, Ireland. He was the son of Thomas and Isabelle (Carberry) Doyle, and was a foreman at the time of marriage. They had two children -- Patricia Doyle and John Doyle.

Patrick is believed to have been an employee of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which had major operations in Connellsville. At the time of his death, in mid-summer 1940, he was a bookkeeper in the main office of the Works Progress Administration in the state capitol city of Harrisburg, Dauphin County, PA.

Lena was a member of the B&O Veterans Association. She also worked for Anchor Hocking Glass Company in Connellsville. They were members of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, where she belonged to its Confraternity of Christian Mothers.

Patrick suffered from heart-related illness, and became deathly sick in the summer of 1940. He died at Connellsville State Hospital on July 26, 1940, at the age of 53. He was buried at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Connellsville, following high mass at Immaculate Conception Church.

The B&O yards at Connellsville, with the city as a backdrop, and the Youghiogheny River in the foreground

Lena later married Benton L. Showman ( ? -1967). They lived on Willow Street in Connellsville. While at work at the B&O yards one day in March 1938, Benton fell from a freight car and suffered a possible fractured clavicle. He was taken the local hospital, but fortunately his condition was not considered serious. Benton died in 1967.

In 1934, when Lena’s brother Charles co-founded the Younkin National Home Coming Reunion, she supported the effort, and arranged for her young daughter to sing as part of the official schedule of events. In its heyday, the event drew more than 1,000 people annually.

Lena also enjoyed the Harbaugh Reunions, and is known to have been in attendance in 1948, 1954 and 1965. Her son John won the "Furthest Traveled" Award in 1954, coming a distance of 700 miles. In 1965, her husband Benton received the "Oldest Man Award.

On Dec. 14, 1972, Lena died at the Connellsville State General Hospital at the age of 72.